A top Waymo executive said Wednesday the United States could lead globally on autonomous driving, expressing hope that a national standard under the incoming Trump administration would boost safety.Tekedra Mawakana, co-chief executive of the Google-owned robotaxi venture, said the “race” around autonomous driving had “matured” compared with Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, alluding to a global competition in which the US company is competing with Chinese and German auto players.”This is a real opportunity for US leadership and so enabling safe sustainable transportation that is autonomous is very aligned with what I think this administration will want to do,” Mawakana said during a fireside chat interview at the Consumer Electronics Show. Tech experts expect the Trump administration to set a national standard on autonomous driving standards after Trump donor and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk embraced the move.Musk, who is expected to play an influential role in the Trump White House, has expressed frustration with the gap between Texas and California when it comes to rules on autonomous vehicles.Musk plans to launch a robotaxi venture that would compete directly with Waymo. He is targeting the venture to begin by 2027.Mawakana declined to comment directly on whether she trusted Musk to treat competitors fairly in his dealings with Trump. But she welcomed competition, saying “making the road safer is an important mission, and it’s too big for one company.”Although autonomous driving is still a long way from mainstream use, Waymo made strides in 2024. The company operates commercially in three US cities and plans two more US city launches in 2025. It currently provides more than 150,000 trips weekly. Mawakana cautioned of the risk with a national standard of “a race to the bottom on safety,” but said Trump’s team had been “very forward-leaning” on autonomous driving.”As far as a national framework, that’ll be great. It’s just that that framework should require people to demonstrate their safety record,” she said.

A-list actors, musicians and other celebrities were among the tens of thousands of people affected by deadly wildfires in Los Angeles Wednesday, as the entertainment industry screeched to a halt.The showbiz capital has been besieged by multiple out-of-control blazes, with Hollywood events including a glitzy awards show and a Pamela Anderson film premiere among those cancelled as firefighters battle flames in hurricane-force winds.Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the swanky Pacific Palisades area, a favorite spot for celebrities where multimillion-dollar houses nestle on beautiful hillsides, while other infernos sprang up across the north of the city.Mandy Moore, the singer and “This Is Us” actress, told followers on Instagram she had fled with her children and pets from the path of a blaze that had left her Altadena neighborhood “leveled.” “My sweet home. I am devastated and gutted for those of us who’ve lost so much. I’m absolutely numb,” she wrote, in a caption to footage of the destruction.Emmy-winning actor James Woods posted a video on X showing flames engulfing trees and bushes near his Pacific Palisades home as he got ready to evacuate, and shortly afterwards said all the fire alarms were going off.”I couldn’t believe our lovely little home in the hills held on this long. It feels like losing a loved one,” Woods said.”Star Wars” star Mark Hamill told followers on Instagram that he had fled his Malibu home with his wife and pet dog, escaping down a road flanked by active fires.Fellow Emmy-winning actor Billy Crystal said the Pacific Palisades house he and his wife lived in for 46 years burned down on Wednesday.”Words cannot describe the enormity of the devastation we are witnessing and experiencing,” he said in a statement to People magazine. “Janice and I lived in our home since 1979. We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love,” he said.Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis was also forced to evacuate, later writing on Instagram: “Our beloved neighborhood is gone. Our home is safe. So many others have lost everything.”Meanwhile, next week’s unveiling of the Oscar nominations was pushed back until January 19, to give Academy members affected by fires more time to cast their ballots this week. – Premieres cancelled -Several other major Hollywood events have been called off or postponed due to the disaster.The annual Critics Choice Awards gala, which honors the year’s best in film and television and is attended by dozens of A-listers, was delayed from Sunday to January 26.Anderson’s premiere for “The Last Showgirl” was scrapped.Paramount cancelled a glitzy red-carpet screening of the Robbie Williams musical film “Better Man,” and Netflix pulled the plug on a press conference for its Golden Globe winner “Emilia Perez.”Filming of Los Angeles-based shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Hacks” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was paused. And the Universal Studios theme park was closed for the day due to the extreme winds and fire conditions.- ‘Burn’ -Steve Guttenberg — star of 1984 comedy “Police Academy” — was among those helping get people out of Pacific Palisades as the fire began spreading on Tuesday.The “Cocoon” actor expressed frustration at how some of those fleeing the blaze had abandoned their cars on one of the only roads in and out of the ritzy neighborhood.”If you leave your car… leave the key in there so a guy like me can move your car so that these fire trucks can get up there,” he told a live television broadcast.Reality TV personalities Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from “The Hills,” an MTV show that ran until 2010, said they lost their house after evacuating.”I’m watching our house burn down on the security cameras,” Pratt wrote on Snapchat.

Chinese companies have turned out in force again at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, with their prospects overshadowed by the threat of steeper tariffs from incoming US president Donald Trump.XPeng’s “flying car” and TCL’s AI-enhanced television were just a few of the products offered by Chinese companies that have won attention at CES, the annual Las Vegas tech confab.The potential for Trump’s trade policies to roil the global tech industry has loomed large over the event. Trump campaigned on a threat to impose 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, and has reinterated a hardline stance since winning the November election.  Analysts view the threat as at least partly a negotiating tactic, but note that Trump’s first term included a bruising trade war with Beijing, including tariffs that were maintained and enhanced during President Joe Biden’s tenure. Chinese companies expressed varying levels of concern about the threat.”We are worried about Trump’s government policy, but we think it might not last long,” said Mekia Yang of startup Jitlife, which makes its “smart” suitcases in Guangdong Province.”Trump might act tough at the beginning, and then he might change, because there will be some pressure from domestic markets,” due to rising prices, she said. Zhanbin Ao of Mammotion Technology Co., which sells autonomous lawnmowers, acknowledged unease about new levies but said the company is currently shifting production to Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries. “So once we move our manufacturing to other countries, a tariff is not an issue for us,” he said.Other Chinese companies brushed off the threat. Haojia Dengyang of Shenzhen Haoqitansuo Technology, predicted its products would attract US customers even with new tariffs “because they’re valuable, they can really help people.”Shenzhen Haoqitansuo sells smartphone cases, charging devices and other products under the Torras brand in the United States.- Retaliation? -At a November CES press preview held after the election, organizers took a diplomatic line on politics. Gary Shapiro, president of CES organizer the Consumer Technology Association, expressed hope Trump would pivot from the aggressive antitrust posture of the Biden administration that he likened to “death by a million cuts.”But Shapiro also railed against tariffs, saying they amounted to a tax on consumers.Trump’s threatened 60 percent levy on Chinese goods “would be devastating,” Shapiro said.China and other targeted markets “are going to hit back on us, so our exports will be affected as well,” he said. “This is not good for the country.””We need a future of strong trade ties with our friends and allies around the world. In today’s world, no country can go it alone…we must avoid unnecessary tariffs,” Shapiro later said at an industry dinner Wednesday.Like their Chinese counterparts, US companies at CES have steered away from political discussion at product launch events. But executives told AFP the issue is top of mind, even if they aren’t sure exactly what to expect.John Pfeifer, CEO of Oshkosh, said most of the industrial company’s goods sold in the United States are made within the country’s borders, but a fraction are imported. “If they do a 20 percent blanket tariff on anything coming into the US, that would have an impact on us,” he said, pointing to operations in Europe, Mexico and India.”We’d have to decide, okay, what to do — to either reshore this or reengineer so that we can get a different supply base to avoid that tariff.”Oshkosh might also resort to price hikes if tariffs lift prices of critical parts or materials imported to US plants, Pfeifer said.  Like Oshkosh, US agricultural giant John Deere manufactures the vast majority of its equipment sold in the United States within the country’s borders.”It’s a little early to tell what the tariff situation would be, but we’ve navigated through this in the past,” said Deanna Kovar, president, Worldwide Agriculture & Turf Division at Deere.She described the impact on Deere’s products as secondary to the concerns about retaliatory tariffs.”Our biggest concern is to make sure our customers have markets for their products — the corn, the soybeans, the pistachios and almonds that they grow and that there aren’t retaliatory tariffs,” she said.”The most important thing is our customers and that their businesses are viable in the long run,” she said.

Jimmy Carter was to be honored Thursday with a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, amid a groundswell of tributes honoring the 39th US president and the last from the so-called Greatest Generation.The service caps a week of mourning that has seen Americans quietly filing past the flag-draped coffin in the US Capitol to pay their respects to Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100 in his home state of Georgia.President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat at the Episcopal church that has been a traditional venue for send-offs of US presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush.Biden revealed in an interview with USA Today published Wednesday that Carter had asked him to do the honors when the pair — longstanding friends — met for the last time four years ago.”Carter was a decent man. I think Carter looked at the world not from here but from here, where everybody else lives,” Biden said as he gestured from above his head towards his heart.Biden’s living predecessors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — are expected to join around 3,000 mourners at the service, and Thursday has been designated a national day of mourning, with federal offices closed.Carter, who served a single term before a crushing election loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980, was perceived as naive and weak in the dog-eat-dog world of Washington politic.- ‘Decent and humble’ -A more nuanced image of him has emerged as the years passed, reassessing achievements like the brokering of a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.He also received high praise for his post-presidential humanitarian efforts, and a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.The first president to reach triple digits, he had been in hospice care since February 2023 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he died and will be buried next to his late wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter.Mourners begun paying their respects on Saturday, as the carefully choreographed six-day farewell got underway with US flags flying at half-staff around the country.A black hearse bearing Carter’s remains paused at his boyhood family peanut farm in Plains, where a bell was rung 39 times and staff stood in silent tribute.Crowds gathered along the roadside to say their goodbyes, snap photographs or salute as the motorcade rolled slowly past.Carter’s flag-draped casket arrived at Washington’s snow-covered US Capitol on Tuesday atop a gun carriage.It was accompanied by hundreds of service members, with military pallbearers carrying Carter to the Rotunda to lie in state ahead of Thursday’s ceremony — the first presidential funeral since Bush Senior died in 2018.Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, described Carter as “one of the most decent and humble public servants we have ever seen.” “President Carter was a living embodiment of leadership through service, compassion, and a thirst for justice for all,” he said.